The Power Of Books

final post

To say that books can change your life is not a lie, the power of reading is epic, but actually learning from them is even more powerful, Some books made me cry and some made me laugh and some made me question my faith and self and absolutely all of them challenged my mind. I had read more than one book for each author in the list, but I listed the ones with the most impact on my life. For now I can say that these books have changed my life and transformed me into who I am today, I will read more in the future and I will post more lists in the future.

I will list each book with my own opinion about it, and what I took from it, without spoiling any of them, here is the list:

The Overcoat & the Nose By Nikolai Gogol: He is one of the greatest Russian authors who influenced the world of literature, and this book is going to play games with your mind, with a brilliant well executed fantasy and charming style.

Violet’s War By Ahmed Juma: This Epic novel that goes around the struggle among powers and how to create the difference in a world that lost it balance with so many twists and betrayals, this novel taught me the art of survival and how leadership is equal between men and women.

A Farewell To Arm By Ernest Hemingway: A meaning of a true love in a time of war and chaos, as a reader it made me compare between the world then and the world now, and how love used to be seen and how we lost all connections to it today.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra By Friedrich Nietzsche: I will not say more than what the world already knows about this book, it will make you question your faith, practices, and believe, it will be extremely challenging if you still didn’t open up to that part in you, too scared to ask and too afraid to even question religion and faith. This book will change who you are as a person.

The Dream By Emile Zola: A love story that faces a religious and social challenges, the same challenges are still present in the world we live in and how different background, social class, religion can come between two lovers.

Snow By Orhan Pamuk: In a world where religion interfere with the state and how it demolish people’s ethics and values just to gain power and rule the nation, and the danger that faces the person who dares to question that power or even challenge it, and how it tear down families and friends relationships.

Black Milk By Elif Shafak: her perception about motherhood and life as an author and a woman, and the challenges that a women get to face in conservative societies, while questioning marriage, love, motherhood, and going through her postpartum, it answered a lot of my own questions and helped me to see things from different views.

The Storm By Gibran Khalil Gibran: Love, Life, Morals, Religion, Politics, Fear of death, and Fear of living, a life changing book. I really can’t add more of words, it’s written by a genius, this book will give you chills.

A Confession of an Economic Hit Man By John Perkins: political, a clear insight on how politics really works, a whistle-blower who confesses a true life story of him manipulating and destroying countries throw the world bank by giving loans to developing countries and behind closed doors they use these loans to captivate the nations and destroy their infrastructures.

The Gambler By Fyodor Dostoevsky: the great Dostoevsky is trying to portrait a corrupted society and a greedy world full of double standards and ethics and how people turn into their worst nightmares when they are faced with challenges and temptations.

One Hundred Year Of Solitude By Gabriel Garcia Marquez: This one here is the book that made me fell in love with novels and reading , it’s about group of people who chose to abandon this world to create new realty in an I isolated land to create a life where it’s fulled with fiction and reality that get mixed together and the resemblances to our life and how stories and mysteries been told from generation to the next full of fiction just to continue living in fear of those stories so we can fear the change.

The Duel By Anton Chekhov: This novel has all the characters in life it feels like Chekhov wanted to represent every part of his mind in one novel, it’s a short one but it truly represent all kind of humans or maybe a reflection to the author’s characters , for example the bored one, the one that hates everything and everyone, the critic one etc. it’s so interesting that it will let you discover that we all have one or many of them in our life or within us.

Bad Feminist By Roxane Gay: A group of articles with an extreme explanation of what feminism is about and how it’s challenging to be a feminist in a world that for centuries showed women nothing but an emotional creature. it also touches the sensitive subjects such as violence, anger, race, and how women are portrayed in music, movies, and in daily life.

The Intimate Enemy By Guy Finley: it’s the book that changed my whole life, it talks about how people turn into their own enemies and how we destroy our own life by believing what we are told, by our past, and how to let go of fear, expectations and anger.

The Seat Of The Soul By Gary Zukav: A spiritual journey that opened my mind to a new wide open window called karma, intention and how living through fear, anger will even lead to more painful experiences, and how my intention is the key to everything i put out to the world, and to unlock the multi-sensory human that I am.

To A God Unknown By John Steinbeck: it’s about a second chance at life that don’t go the way expected, it’s about family, frustration, dreams, and unexpected events that turns people’s life upside down, searching for God something to believe in, and through that journey it gets too hard and too painful. A conflict starts when those members are searching for the truth and those who think they found God through their practices, and how the characters gets too dark and too confused during their search.

The Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr: Two different worlds, two different believes come together during World War II, and how some humans never lose their kind side and become saviors for those are called enemies and how humans kindness wins over evil thoughts and systems that changes two individuals future and present in a time it was all about white and black no in between, a novel that rocked my world upside down.

Fifty Shades Of Gray By E L James: Many different opinions about this trilogy some called it too poor and it has no meaning and so many sees it just as a romantic novel. For me what I loved about this novel is the author herself breaking all the rules in the literature world, were women authors are not expected to write these types of novels. E L James broke the mold with this book, not just with couple of lines but by publishing four books that talks about two young couple exploring their sex life with specific details.

ShoroK♥♥

Freak Feminist

Many people assume or pretended to know what feminism is about either the anti-feminism or those who understand feminism the wrong way, the main assumption is that feminists are a group rebellion women who hates men, who don’t consider men are important to their life’s, don’t shower and don’t shave their body and those are a group of women who never found a man to love them they took it as asylum to their loneliness that’s what one of my college professors once said in his lecture while the subject wasn’t even about women it was about the environmental management, and I took an action against him to expel him, and the surprise was that he use to harass female students and no one in the class ever thought of it as a wrong doing they responded with “ it happens sometimes”.

The main goal of this movement was about women rights to vote and to have an equal life at her home with her man and at her work place so those anti-feminism voices are trying to show it as it’s just about women driving attention to themselves, these opinions are more common in the middle east, why I keep writing about the middle east it’s because that’s where I live. This movement started in the 18th century where women like Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott and Sojourner Truth were fighting for everyone to have and equal rights, the righs to vote and to have an equal economical, political, and social rights, plus birth control rights. So it wasn’t about hating the opposite sex, or marriage.

And in the modern era Maya Angelou wrote about how feminist are not just an activists or angry souls they are a beautiful sexual beings no matter what the world thinks of their sizes, colors, and dreams in one of her most known poem Phenomenal Women “Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to, Suit a fashion model’s size, But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. “. Oprah Winfery in the other hand the women who changed my life and made me the women that I am today all after my dad introduced me to her, she’s considered to be one of the most influencing women of our time. Her strength by never letting the world bring her down, but the most important lesson I learned personally is how to be a feminist and vulnerable and never fear being called weak. Personally I never thought of feminism as hating the other side, because I’ve learned feminism from my dad like I mentioned in a previous post, he’s the one who told me to fight for my equal rights and never take no for an answer from a anyone and that the only way to judge me is through my work and results not by my gander, he taught me to be strong and to fight for what’s mine and never wait for men to give me what’s mine and to never wait for society to give the bread crumps of my rights just to shut my mind and mouth up, that’s how I knew that being a feminist is not about being angry or aggressive with men ,it’s not a war, it’s a journey to take what I was born with which is my freedom and the deference between my rights. And to always remember that through this journey I will face criticism and i will be attacked by strangers and family members but my dad always told to never stop moving forward and never feel intimidated by the rejection or the isolation that our society will apply on me. Remembering that feminism is living with my birth rights to have my own choices in marriage, love, education, dreams, job, having children, plus equal opportunities and equal treatment in every aspect of my life.

And it doesn’t surprise me anymore that the minute I say that I am a feminist people responded with “So you don’t want a man to pay for your first date or pull the chair for you, or to open the car’s door for you and you don’t want to hold hand or to be respected, and taking his last name?!” I always get so confused about it, chivalry and romance has nothing to do with feminism I still love all those things, I can pay my own bill or I can open the car’s door it’s about being nice and respectful, who doesn’t like chivalry and respect, at the same time I don’t feel bad if I ever opened the car’s door for my man or pay the bill on the first date, it’s just a matter of a romantic act on your first date, and about taking his last name it’s a matter of a choice you both make, I have worked for my name so hard and it takes a strong man to accept that I have the choice to not take his name, but even with that I might chose to take his name if want to, I would love if he would take my name why not?! And there is absolutely no reason even to think about it.

Finally being a feminist is more than just wearing a suit so people can take me serious or being uptight all the time, it’s a historical journey since the beginning of time, women died and suffered a lot so we can be who we are today and it’s not just about the visuals and speeches it’s more of a daily life not just a celebrity thing it’s about fighting for women who are teachers, doctors, stay home mothers, and waitresses and farmers everywhere it’s more than a cover on the magazine and interviews, because not a lot of women has that platform. it’s how to use fame to fight for those women who we interact with on a daily basis, it’s about all of us supporting all of us, MEN & WOMEN.

ShoroK♥♥

New Year, No Expectations

No Expectations and No resolutions it’s a promise I need to keep ….

Honestly I’m done with expectations and resolutions, we set a lot of expectations and we end up being disappointed with ourselves, last year I thought to myself let’s stop setting resolutions for a year you never know what will happen in it, I ended up planning and thinking of my plans and resolutions day and night. So, this year I’m determined not to plan anything and I’m not setting any kind of resolutions, all I’m going to do is continue working hard and keep my heart open and never letting other’s opinions change my choices. I’m doing this thing because we always set a plan and resolution and by August or maybe earlier feeling disappointed by the results. Now I know that life is not what you expect life is about surprises and God’s right timing either it’s a love story or dream house or dream career all I need is to work harder and keep believing in myself without putting too much on my freakin mind, life is about 10% out of our control you never know what will happen.

Every year I write down a plan and I work so hard to keep up with it, and i even traveled to make these plans come to life just like the old John joke, who was in financial difficulty, walked into a church and started to pray. ”Listen God,” John said. ”I know I haven’t been perfect but I really need to win the lottery. I don’t have a lot of money. Please help me out.” He left the church, a week went by, and he hadn’t won the lottery, so he walked into a synagogue. ”Come on, God,” he said. ”I really need this money. My mom needs surgery and I have bills to pay. Please let me win the lottery.” He left the synagogue, a week went by, and he didn’t win the lottery. So, he went to a mosque and started to pray again. ”You’re starting to disappoint me, God,” he said. ”I’ve prayed and prayed. If you just let me win the lottery, I’ll be a better person. I don’t have to win the jackpot, just enough to get me out of debt. I’ll give some to charity, even. Just let me win the lottery.” John thought this did it, so he got up and walked outside. The clouds opened up and a booming voice said, ”John, buy a fucking lottery ticket.” and that’s what me and my dad did we bought the tickets and went to London and Los Angles to recorded some music and do a photo-shoot. But at the end I hit the wall of expectations.

What I have learned from last year is that I am tired of having expectations for people in my life, and people in music business empty promises, all I’m going to do is to work hard as usual and never let things bring me down, I will not set a deadline or plan every single second of my life, I’ve been doing it through my whole life, I just want to breath and take the pressure of my chest and take a moment for myself away from politics, toxic people in my life and keep the real ones, I won’t explain myself to anyone I want to be free of social responsibility , focusing on my well-being, relaxing, and focus on myself mentally, physically, I will try my best to let things happens the way they’re supposed to happen.

Finally, I’m going to let 2019 be the year of the truth, no expectations, no plans, No resolutions just keeping it real, I will live in the moment and see where God is taking me. All I need is Peace, Love, Health, and true success.

ShoroK♥♥

Becoming 30

Spoiler alert: The word thirty will appear a lot in this post. In case you’re allergic to it 😉

Yes, how many of us is actually scared of this number, because that’s what we’ve been told as women plus young girls, it’s scary because the myth says that’s when you start to lose your beauty and the biological clock start ticking for motherhood and family, I guess it started to freak us out because it’s a worldwide judgment that if you are not married and you don’t have kids it means you are losing in life. Even the most confident woman starts feeling the pressure to figure her life out earlier just right before 30. Society begin to convince women and young girls of the idea that they need to say yes to the right guy who looks like the safe option even when that voice inside of you tells you that you deserve better ,it became part of our unconscious mind to hurry up the minute we start reaching thirty. And I’m not different from any girl in this the world. Movies and media are trying to push us to believe that we are not desirable anymore and men won’t look at us the same, when in reality I still have people asking me if I’m twenty five or so. So I took the decision to think of it as a number.

In the other hand what I have learned from the past which I just started to figure it out: First thing is to stay true to myself “DON’T FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT” you will lose yourself and your mind while you’re achieving your dreams. Second that I’m better than eighty percent than the people in the room NO not because I’m argent, it’s because half of people in the room they are just like me scared while fighting their own battle, I just need to be as confident as them, it takes just little courage. The third one is who gives a F**** it means who cares who laughs on me when i take the stage, presentation, office meeting, and even talking in the class, just who cares, own it.

Yes it’s a scary thing I’m not going to lie , but it’s normal to be scared not ashamed, I love the fact that I’m blessed to grow older , because there are people who lost their lives fighting to grow older. I don’t want to be ashamed anymore of being myself that’s why I’m not going to hide that it’s scary because many movies and books and some celebrities made thirties looks like it’s all about becoming an adult and now life is not fun anymore and they can’t dance anymore because they can’t stay awake all night long and enjoy their life’s because their bodies hurts. And by this age motherhood instincts starts kicking in to have a family, all these ideas messed up with our heads. The truth is I still love staying all night long listing and dancing to music, watching movies, writing songs, I still love dancing and jumping from table to table I still dance and laugh like I’m eighteen . I don’t feel old at all, I grew up as a spirit and that’s it. I also hate the idea that becoming thirty is hurrying up because the world is not going to accept you and you no longer belong to the twenties. Actually I love how I look now way more than I was in my teenage years, I look hotter and more confident with a big room full of improvements from the inside and outside. And more than ever I’m determined to make my dream come true.

This week just before my birthday my mind kept sinning Beyoncé’s song hold up changing it to Slow Down and kept playing in the back of my head “ Slow Down” all the time with the same melody but different lyrics, and at the same time I fell from my bedroom’s stairs just like every time my back injury starts to become better something like this happens I fell and the pain comes back, so tonight I was on my bed putting some ice on it while watching “ Jane The Virgin” and I was thinking what God is trying to tell me, it took me minutes to connect the two together the song in my head and falling from the stairs “God is telling me to SLOW DOWN”. Because I’m becoming thirty I need to slow, that life after thirty is not a competition, it’s about slowing down. I need to slow down my mind, my speech and my whole lifestyle. because this whole myth that “life is going to pass fast”, it happens fast because the minute we turn thirty we start to move faster, because we’re told that life is going to be faster so you better catch up or things will pass you, so we hurry to fall in love or we choose the wrong career because now we are on the panic mode, And I just can’t do that anymore, I’m going to slow down in everything from now on. Thirty is all about discovering more about me, becoming wiser, intelligent,reading more books, and working on my music, yet keeping it fun. Last but not least to be honest I still feel the same inside weird goofy awkward shy Shorok.

ShoroK♥♥

Being a Black Muslim Woman with a Huge Dream

It’s what I call the real life Deathly Hallows, being a woman is already hard all around the world, much harder living in a conservative country, there are some people who call themselves “Open Minded” but the minute I discuses my thoughts and dream to become a pop star in Hollywood and show them my photos and ideas they go bananas responding with “women in the Middle East can’t do it out of traditions”. I hate the word open minded because it became the new pick-up line to flirt with a girl who wears a jeans, as a woman you have to be mentally strong to face all the looks and the rejections, and sometimes the harassment because I’m not wearing what’s called “decent clothes”.

Being black and facing racism in the Middle East is the number one unspoken hidden issue, even when you ask a black person about it he or she will response with “No we don’t have racism” because it’s in the background of every day’s life just like the sound of birds or trees in the streets, all the jokes , shows on TV, theater play, even when a black man wants to get married his family will want him to marry a white women to modify the family’s genes, so being a black women means you already know that rich families are above your dreams or even thinking of having a white man is a privilege even writing this sentence makes me cringe and disgusted by this fact, it’s so disgusting to hear what some people say at weddings how the bride is lighter than her husband or he married a black girl with the biggest question mark on their faces.

On the other hand being a Muslim women you are supposed to obey all the rules and if you get hit by your brother or husband it’s reasonable he’s allowed to do so because he’s the protector of the family’s dignity, he might sleep with women, drink, smoke, and stay outside the house and travel with his friends , but you as a Muslim woman is born with shame on your forehead you can’t dream equally as men , you can’t speak the truth or even asking for your rights, what surprise me is that the governments here are trying so hard to open up for equal opportunities but they hesitate out of fear by extremist religious groups or parties, who could organize rallies in the streets and convince communities to reject it, convincing society that it’s going to lead women to fall for the devil like it’s the middle ages, speaking from a personal experience , people threatened me with racist comments on how I’m a liberal dirty black ugly girl, just because I wanted to become an artist as the first girl ever from a conservative country to participate in a reality musical show, to my surprise the government supported me with my dream to become a huge pop star in Hollywood. The prime minster himself asked me to talk and to make my voice heard and to follow my dreams, while others like business men and sponsors for example one of the biggest soft drinks brand agreed first to help me and then when they saw my photos and project they refused by saying I quote “They don’t sponsor artists anymore” and others refused too because they feared the community’s reaction.

Education and ambition is just the same you can go to school and college, you can have a job even becoming a minister or a business women or even an artist, but there are red lines you don’t cross them or else you will be threatened on social media by calling you shameless and careless and you must apologize or they will socially isolate you. Ambitious woman is not more than what you are told to be, if you across the red lines you will be labeled as lonely cold scary woman who will never find a man to love and start a family with, that’s what happens in conservative societies they teach men to avoid “Too ambitious too successful women”. So eventually that’s what happens women will not go that far from the drawn lines because they fear of being alone and isolated.

Love is forbidden for a woman because if you’re in love it means you’ll bring shame and disgrace to the family, in the other hand if you are allowed to love it means your father or the men in your family are not men enough so it’s matter of questing men’s manhood, so you need to prove that you’re a man by physically discipline her most of the time. Love for women in the Middle East or conservative societies is just in movies you watch, but if you are a man you can love or play around until you get married because men don’t carry shame but women do. Love is showed as a sin and a shameful act by women even in Arabic soap operas, even if it’s true pure love. So girls and women hide it and do love in secret. We can raise them up to think correctly to choose right from wrong and trust them while protecting them, not teaching them that Love is ugly full of sins, but how it’s pure and infinite. Last but not least teach her when to say yes and when to say no.

As a Black Muslim Women I want to live a healthy life, to open up to other options and to make choices but again it’s so hard because you face a huge challenges by society and international women organizations when you reach out for help to raise your voice and become one of world leaders , you face an organizations that wants to use you as political card against your country from the outside it’s all about women rights and empowering them, in the inside they have a hidden agendas to use you as a political pressure card. Basically being a Black Muslim Woman with a dream like mine is hard to achieve in a conservative community.

At the end I’m blessed to have a dad who supports my ideas, dreams, and respect my beliefs, I have a dad who taught me to be strong, ambitious, and intelligent, trusting my choices in life, love, and career. But there are thousands and millions of women and young girls like me they become lost between a home where there’s no healthy support system and international organizations that uses them as a political pressure card.

ShoroK♥♥

Why Music…

Because it’s my tool to communicate with the world, since I was a little girl I just knew always knew that music is my therapy, soul food and the way I communicated with the universe. I don’t need to know music notes or music secrets to fall in love with a song, it just touches my soul without any explanation, that’s why I write music lyrics all the time, it’s how I can motivate others ,telling my story through my lyrics, and it’s how I can say I’m mad, sad or in love. I can’t show or talk my feelings; I can only sing my feelings or share them with a piece of music that can explain my feelings more than I can. I don’t just do it for a living, or to state the issues I stand for, fight for, I do it for the sake of my soul too.

Music kept me alive, healed my soul, music is not just a talent it’s a feeling and motivation to be a better person, it makes my soul happy, and just like what Oprah Winfery once said “You know it’s your call when you are ready to do it for nothing” I did that in the past and I will do it in the future because like she said it feels like it’s the fuel of your soul, it motivates me every morning to wake up knowing that I have music to live for and I never think of money or fame because it’s more than an income and more than an exposure it’s my path and my purpose in this life time.

And finally music is what lovers share, broken people hear and lonely people enjoy that’s why I love Music and I will never give up on it.

ShoroK♥♥

About F

How many times you’ve heard that failure is the first step to success and that every time you fail it’s another brick to build your success, but there are moments when you don’t remember these quotes because the situation is so hard and you feel that things will never be OK, you just can’t implement it at that moment, especially if you have been working so hard for so long and every time you try something new and you get excited thinking that “oh that’s it, from now everything will work out” and things start falling apart again and you get ten steps backward. At that moment you feel stuck in between “do I give up or I just keep going”. Because every successful person talks about their success journey and how they failed at the beginning and how failing teaches you a lot about yourself and that’s it. Successful people often forget to talk to about how the process will be hard, how at a times you will feel so frustrated and angry, how the real moments feel like a punch in the gut, and you just go to bed feeling like there is no way out from whatever situation you’re in. They should state it that way and then add; but in those moments you will meet yourself for the first time, that at that moment all your work on yourself will be coming out, in the moment of frustration and failure you should learn to be positive and motivated not just during sunny beautiful happy days.

I wanted to write this post because I’m not where I want to be, I failed in the past but I will continue to fight for my dreams, also I’m writing this post so if you’re fighting for your dreams here you go there’s someone who’s going through the same process as you, so don’t give up, like i said I’m not there yet and at times i feel it’s hard to continue, but like I said before, now is the time to show your strength and positive attitude.

I’m just an example of failing for thousands of times and yet I keep going, trusting the journey and the process of failure, I have many examples in my life and these two examples are two of many. Failing at a musical reality show I didn’t go further than five weeks and during that time I had a hard time on the show I faced racism , bullying , and hate for being a girl from a conservative country, that I asked the other contestants to vote me out, believe me when i say i felt like i failed so bad, it was one of my biggest lessons with failure, now i’m so proud of that experience i wont change a thing about it. it’s a constant reminder that at the end everything will be fine and every failure has an end.

Lesson number two is when i was in college for six years preparing for my BBA and my MBA degree, during final exams and busy weeks, studying while maintain my enthusiasm for my music, working on both at night because music is my life, one hour writing my essays and the next hour sending my music through emails . At times I failed, cried, lost loved ones, got sick, and there was a times when I had two final exams at the same day my grandfather died and I went to that exam while i was sick and I had my period, plus that winter was the coldest since 1964, at that day I had flash backs how I failed in the past in high school when things weren’t going well, I could’ve easily withdraw from the exams, it would’ve been justified, but my dad told me that “No one will say that you’re a loser because it’s a hard situation, but if you attend the exams and you fail at it then you did your best and it’s not the end of the world you will be stronger for the next years, and if you attend it and pass the exams you will gain experience for the future and you’ll be proud of yourself”. So I went to that exam and I passed it not with the best grades but i did it i faced my past failure experiences, and that’s how i passed the whole six years, now looking back at it, it was the best lesson that failure taught me” It’s not as scary as it sounds”.

Yes, I will fail again and I will get frustrated but I will never stop. Quitting is not in my DNA. So if you’re reading this and you feel the same just remember that someone somewhere in this world is supporting you and fighting just like you. So don’t give up let’s keep fighting.

ShoroK ♥♥

DAD

I always lose words when I talk about him, this post is not just about how amazing this man is, it’s how he taught me to fight for my right and how feminism is both camp work and much more lessons.

for a strong man to teach his daughter to be strong, intelligent, fearless to face this cruel world i quote him “it’s sad that we live in a world were men are in control of society and I want you to one of the women that will change this fact” and debate him whenever we talk about big issues yet he taught me to kind to every soul I meet. meanwhile never feeling insecure about his manhood, it’s the biggest lesson I learn from him how to be strong and never feel insecure about my womanhood even when I’m surrounded by strong people. In a previous post, I said that he’s the one who introduced me to Oprah and so many great women, not just men.

He supports my music, and ideas without letting me feel like if I became a politician just like him he would be happier, he always ensures me that he feels happy as long as I’m being myself and enjoying what I do. He was a parent when he needed to be when it comes to mistakes teaching me that there will be consequences for my action I make, which taught me that trust is everything. That’s why he’s my Miracle in this life to be born in a conservative society and to have him in my life is no coincidence.

I wrote this post to honor him and to say that to be a father is not just about authority and discipline it’s about understanding, never judging, and loving her not just with what you buy her, but by being the best friend, parent, and mentor she needs. Understand her fears and insecurities, let her fall, cry, break to learn how to be strong yet not leaving her sideline, last but not least show her the magic she holds inside of her.

To You Dad,

Your daughter ShoroK♥♥

Women Who Have Inspired Me

Women Who inspiered me

It all started when I asked my dad “Dad who’s Oprah Winfrey?” I know it’s crazy to say that now knowing her, but I was just fourteen or fifteen at that time, I used to hear the women in my family talking about how famous her show is. My dad’s response was “if you ever want to become successful and powerful you have to watch her”. Her influence on my life is huge she’s like a mentor to me, as a woman I’ve learned mostly through her. It all started there at that moment. Then I was searching for other strong women, the ones who changed history simply by being themselves free strong humans.

Dad then introduced me to Margaret Thatcher the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom the “Iron Lady”. Then Princess Diana, he never told me how just beautiful and stylish she was like what most the people will describe her, he told me that this woman didn’t take her title for granted she used it to help others in need even when the whole world only saw her a beautiful stylish the queen of hearts, what fascinated me is how she broke the royal protocols. After that, it was Mother Teresa and her Heroic selfless work for the poor. Later I started to for my search to own strong inspiring women like Maya Angelou and her fight for women rights and equal rights to be free in her choices, Frida Kahlo is the feminist she was. Madonna for me was the controversial women with a purpose with her eye-catching art against all social standards, she broke the boundaries and took the world by storm she showed how art can break all kind of barriers.

And in this modern era I was fascinated by Beyoncé just like everyone else but for me she was more than a sexy beautiful women, she was someone who inspired me as a black girl in a racist society that finds black girls are not chosen as beautiful women, she was my connection to my inner beautiful black girl. Last but not least Elif Shafak the writer plus activist I remember I bought her book by mistake “40 roles for love” from there I fell in love with her books, and her ideas about women in a religious societies, she’s more than a writer, in my opinion, she is the definition of feminism.

ShoroK♥♥

Things That Matters..

Things that matters 3

Every suffering soul deserves Love, Support, and chance in life. We don’t have to suffer to understand that we need to help others. And how laws alone can’t help if society is not educated enough understand these issues. We all share the same pain but different story, that’s why I support these issues and follow organizations who work for a better future.

ShoroK ♥